Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
hour guard. Sometimes we'd sleep on an empty Nile cruiser, watched over by the mari-
time police who'd circle my watery abode in a blow-up dinghy like an episode from some
abysmal spy movie. I had to walk to a prearranged schedule, and never deviate from the
route Turbo had submitted back in Aswan. The expedition had become a circus act, a kind
of Orwellian charade, and I was the dancing monkey, performing for the pleasure of the
Egyptian Ministry of Tourism. Every time we entered a new governorate, I'd have to go
through the same theatrics of drinking tea with the governor and being presented with a
plastic plaque in front of a government-approved journalist. My every move was being
watched, my every word recorded, my every action noted.
It was with the police crowing in my ear, and in a constant mood of paranoia, that I arrived
in Luxor. Modern Luxor has grown up on the site of the ancient city of Thebes, and its
ruined temples, monuments and tombs once drew hordes of tourists from all over the world
- but, as I woke on my first morning in the government-approved hotel, the city seemed
eerily still: like everywhere in Egypt, there was barely a tourist in sight.
In the morning, Turbo and I crossed the town to the deserted Temple of Luxor. The
Nile runs directly alongside the ruins, and was key to its creation - the Ancient Egyptians
brought its massive stones downriver by barge from the quarry at Aswan - and to walk
along the banks of the modern corniche is to live and breathe the historical wonder that this
outdoor museum evokes. Our footsteps echoed spookily as we came into the temple's main
chamber, watched from on high by the faces of gods and a colossus depicting Thebes' an-
cient ruler, Ramesses II. The temples at Luxor had been built as long ago as 1400BC, and
slowly excavated across the 19th and 20th centuries. At some time in their history, these
vaults had been places of worship for Ancient Egyptians, a centre of the Greek adminis-
tration and a fortress for the Roman legionnaires that manned this southerly outpost; now
they were as hollow and untouched as in the days before they were rediscovered.
'Here he is,' said Turbo. 'Ibrahim?'
There was only one other man at the temple. Ibrahim was a tour guide from Cairo, who
now had to travel far and wide to find any business at all. An ebullient, round-faced man
in his mid-thirties, with thick-rimmed glasses and a slightly balding head, he'd agreed to
show me around the temples while Turbo, who'd seen it all before, lounged by the river-
side.
Ibrahim was a member of the Egyptian minority: a Coptic Christian. Meeting him here
was a stark reminder that Egypt was not entirely an Islamic country - and never had been.
According to Biblical tradition, it was into Egypt that Joseph and Mary had fled with the
baby Jesus, after King Herod had commanded the death of all first-born male infants. By
the middle of the 1st century, the Coptic Orthodox Church had been born. For six centur-
ies, Christianity prospered here - and it wasn't until the Islamic conquest of Egypt, begin-
